Leave a comment

It’s afternoon. The school became bustling again.
Ravenous students raced down to the small kiosk and dining hall, leaving the class sparse rather quickly.
Kana lay sprawled on her desk, massaging her temple. Despite being allowed by the teacher to sleep during class session, minding her condition, half a day was enough to leave her weary, her whole body covered in cold sweat.
Eru was the class A’s president and was called to the teacher’s office for the afternoon, consequently canceling their plan to eat lunch together.
‘Do I really need to go to the dining hall alone?’ While this distress Kana, the blond girl’s figure crept closer.
“Return my notebook to me, please…” the girl humbly pleaded. She has somewhat regretted her transgression after she discovered that she was the one who lost the book, rather than being robbed.
Kana tilted her head with a groan. She had considered simply returning the book, but when the girl smeared her name by calling her a thief, the girl lost her good will.
“If you don’t return it, don’t blame me for my rudeness.” Kirisaki Chitoge threaten.
Kana narrowed her eyes, and the blond girl immediately shivered with hair stood on their ends.
As a result, Kana suddenly flip open the book and start reading aloud, “Orehikou Tarou, average academic result, average look, no exper…”
The aforementioned Orehikou Tarou who sat in the front turned his head from curiosity.
“A-A-A-A-A-A-A” Kirisaki panickly gave her all to her shouting, as if she was trying to conceal Kana’s voice, while also snatching the notebook at the same time.
However, after she snatched it, she discovered that the notebook was completely empty. There’s no name on the first page either. This wasn’t her notebook.
Kana nonchalantly pulled out a blue notebook, putting it on the table, and then quietly tapping on it.
Resigned, the blond girl finally said, “what can I do for you to give the notebook back?”
Kana pondered a moment, and said “We will make a bet. If I lose, I will return the notebook. If I win, you will help me with something.”
Kirisaki alarmingly straighten her back, “I’m not doing anything illegal.”
“It isn’t illegal,” Kana replied.
“Immoral act is also unacceptable,” she retorted.
Kana rolled her eyes, “it won’t even violate any core socialist values.”
Kirisaki breathed a sigh of relief and asked, “what kind of bet?”
Kana pointed at the sea of people outside the window, “You can point at anyone there, and then I guess what is his current profession. If I guess right, I win.”
Kirisaki stared at the sea of people for a moment, and shook her head, “if it is in school, if it isn’t a teacher, then it is a student. It would be an overtly easy guess.”
“Then what you would rather me guess?” Kana asked.
Kirisaki pointed outside of the class’ door and said, “if you can guess who is fighting right now, then you win.”
Kana strained her ears. There’s a girl who are shouting very loudly with high pitch, but there was a little far away, she can’t make anything out clearly.
“Your hearing is really good,” Kana replied.
Kirisaki confidently smiled, “guess.”
Kana tapped her finger on the edge of her stool, her body rocking back and forward. She mused for a moment and said “Yamada-sensei’s wife is currently having a quarrel with Yamada-sensei.”
Kirisaki stared as if she couldn’t believe it. She ran out to confirm it, and then hurriedly ran back, arms propped up on the table, staring incredulously in her eyes and asked, “how did you know?”
“Few students dared to have a big fight at school, so that leaves another three types of people who might. A teacher, a student’s guardian, and a teacher’s family member,” Kana reasoned, “generally speaking, if a guardian is summoned for the student’s wrongdoing, then their mother would refrain from being this stirred, which leaves only the other two types.”
“Then how did you narrow it down to Yamada-sensei and his wife?” Kirisaki asked.
“Today morning, I saw Yamada-sensei wearing unmatching socks,” Kana explained, “for a married adult man to wear the wrong socks, other than running out in a hurry, you can argue that his married life weren’t that harmonious, and that his wife didn’t pay close attention to his life. Or after he woke up, there was an extremely disconcerting incident which threw his focus off, like a fight with his wife.”
Kirisaki looked her up and down a few times, and finally sighed, “scary. You really are the representative of our grade.¹”
“This has nothing to do with me being the representative of my year,” Kana contended.
“Do you know?” Kana suddenly whispered, “I hear from Koichi-san that Yamada-sensei is having an affair with one of the female student, and so his wife has dragged the quarrel to the school,…”
Kana didn’t know who Koichi is at all. She sneered at Kirisaki, “don’t change the topic. Who won the bet?”
With her mind easily read, she lowered her head, “fine, what do you want?”
“Go and buy me a…”
“I knew you are going to tell me to do something shameless! I can’t do it…Uuuu…”
Kana grabbed a rubber eraser from her table and flicked it at the girl’s forehead, “what are you deluding about! I want you to buy me a bento!”
“Just that?” the girl asked, amazed.
“Yes,” Kana nodded, and instructed her further, “remember, I don’t eat deep-fried food. I don’t want poultry, beef, nor pork. I don’t like additive, but lacking any soup would also be intolerable. Red bean soup would be the best.”
“That’s a lot of request.” Kirisaki’s mouth twitched. Nevertheless, she still took out her own wallet and went to the kiosk.
After more than twenty minutes later, Kirisaki returned with two boxes of lunch box. Kana reached out to get her own portion. An eel rice box. It should be the school’s most expensive lunch box. The errand girl really didn’t like this, but she lost the bet, so what can she do?
Kirisaki also sat in front of Kana’s table and opened her lunch box. She got a beef curry rice box.
Kana picked up her eel and dispose of it into Kirisaki’s box, and eat the vegetable together with the rice.
“Are you a vegetarian?” Kirisaki asked curiously.
Kana shook her head, “I sometimes eat a little meat.”
“What a strange person,” Kirisaki curtly commented.
“Hey, Chitoge, here you are,” suddenly, someone inserted herself between Kana and Kirisaki.
Kana scowled at the intruder and peeked at her face only to discover that it was the colorful girl from the bus station.
“Koichi-san,” Kirisaki greeted her.
So this is Koichi Ai. Kana thought that the person Kirisaki would described as “delinquent” would look more ruthless.
“Hey, Chitoge,” Koichi Ai grabbed her shoulder, “I thought you said you would be inviting us in the afternoon? Why did you break your promise?”
“Ah,” Kirisaki lightly exclaimed, “I forgot!”
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Koichi Ai laughed it off, “I already paid for you, so you just need to return me the money, a total of 5000 yen.”
Kirisaki slightly hesitated, but at the urging of the impatient Koichi Ai, finally took out 5000 yen.
Koichi Ai impatiently took the money, and said, “Tonight, we are going to karaoke bar, we promised with a few senior high schoolers too. Come with us, I can introduce you to one of the boys.”
Despite the literal meaning of the words, that did not sound like an invitation at all.
“However, my home has a curfew…” Kirisaki choked the words out.
“Curfew? Haha, are you a grade schooler?” Ai sneered as if it was a comedy skit, “you are already a high schooler, you can even legally marry, yet you still care about a curfew.²”
After being provoked, she started blushing, and broke down a little, “then I…”
“Chitoge-san has already promised to go out with me tonight,” Kana unsolicitedly spoke up.
“Eh?” Kirisaki certainly didn’t know anything about that.
“Who are you?” Ai asked, only noticed her existence then.
“Who cares who am I! What’s important is that Chitoge has already promised me!” Kana raised her brows, she picked up a notebook and angrily slammed it on the table.
Ai glanced at Kirisaki, eyes asking for confirmation.
Kirisaki really wanted that she never promised, but the notebook in Kana’s hand compelled her to nod her head instead, and said, “Uh, it’s as she said, I just forgot…”

1. TL note: It confuses me too. Usually, the smartest student give the opening year speech, representing their year’s students. However, Kana isn’t exactly…disciplined, let’s say. I doubt that she would be called if the school needs the new students’ representatives.
2. TL note: 16 is the minimum marriage age for girls in Japan, but only under written permission from her parents, signed. Otherwise, they would need to be an adult in order to marry without parent approval, in other words, 20 years old. There are exceptions apparently, but that’s beyond the scope of this novel, and these exceptions seem to be edge cases anyhow. Only minority of the country will be able to evoke these exceptions.